


for no other girl such as this one now

by tunemyart



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-22 16:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30041490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunemyart/pseuds/tunemyart
Summary: For his part, Perdicus laughed when Gabrielle asked if he wanted to go to Poteidaia for the wedding.“Where else would we go?” he asked. Again, Gabrielle blushed, and he read her instantly, laughing again, this time with affection plain in his voice. “Same old Gabrielle. We can wait a few days to get home, can’t we? See our families and have them with us? You wouldn’t want us to start our life together on the road, anyway.”--Gabrielle and Perdicus go home for the wedding. Xena accompanies them. Callisto doesn't show up. Angst ensues.
Relationships: Gabrielle/Xena
Comments: 43
Kudos: 55





	1. Gabrielle

**Author's Note:**

> so once upon a time I started writing this AU of "The Return of Callisto" that's basically "What if they went home for the wedding and Callisto didn't show up?" and recently felt inspired to clean it up and finish it, so... enjoy? 
> 
> Title is once again from Anne Carson's translation of Sappho (113).

Once she decided to do something, Gabrielle had never been one to waste time before making it happen. 

Just ask her mother, who had once sat down in despair when seven year old Gabrielle had decided to clumsily shear the sheep weeks before it was time because they looked too warm - without keeping an eye on the wool she’d gathered as it blew unchecked across the field. Or her sister, who had grumpily gone along with it a hundred times at least when Gabrielle had named herself ringleader of the Poteidaian kids’ playtime for the day. Or even Xena - _especially_ Xena, Gabrielle reflected - who, when she was still only notorious for being a warlord, had quailed under Gabrielle’s determination on that first day as Gabrielle had talked her way onto Argo and into her life. With much rolling of eyes, sure, but still - she had _quailed._

So she didn’t see much of a reason to delay once she’d found Perdicus, dejected after the battle, and told him that she would marry him after all. The joy on his face as he picked her up by the waist and whirled her around would have been enough to convince her if she wasn’t convinced already that this was right, that this was what she was meant to do. They were both such different people than they had been a year ago, and they’d still, against all odds, found each other all over again in a way Gabrielle never would have dreamed possible. 

“Just think,” she said dreamily. “We both had to go on a journey to find ourselves here. It never would have worked if we’d stayed in Poteidaia - we had to both find our separate paths, only to find that they met again after all. Isn’t it romantic, Xena?” 

Xena smiled in a way Gabrielle read as indulgent. “Sure,” she allowed. “I guess we need to be on our way to Poteidaia tomorrow, then.”

“Why?” Gabrielle asked, genuinely confused. 

Xena looked at her strangely. “For the wedding. Unless you two aren’t planning on actually getting married for a while.”

“Oh,” Gabrielle said, who honestly hadn’t even considered going back to Poteidaia and could feel herself deflating at the thought. “I guess I just thought we’d get married in the next town. We’ve been through there before, remember? There’s a nice temple to Hera.” Xena was looking even more strangely at Gabrielle now, and Gabrielle felt herself starting to grow defensive. “I thought you could be our witness.”

“What about your family? Or Perdicus’ family?” 

Frankly, in the image of her wedding in her mind, they’d never factored in, and Gabrielle blushed in embarrassment. Everyone she wanted, she already had with her. “I guess - I just thought - “

“Why wait?” Xena asked, wry amusement coloring her voice. “Yeah, I figured. This is you we’re talking about.”

Gabrielle thought about throwing out a half-hearted _what’s that supposed to mean,_ but conceded the point when Xena reached out and threw her arm around her shoulder in a half embrace. 

“I guess I should go talk to Perdicus,” she said instead, and Xena hugged her closer for a second before letting her go. 

“Guess you should.”

For his part, Perdicus laughed when Gabrielle asked if he wanted to go to Poteidaia for the wedding. 

“Where else would we go?” he asked. Again, Gabrielle blushed, and he read her instantly, laughing again, this time with affection plain in his voice. “Same old Gabrielle. We can wait a few days to get home, can’t we? See our families and have them with us? You wouldn’t want us to start our life together on the road, anyway.”

Gabrielle’s entire life had been the road for the last year. The road had shaped her into who she was now, had given her a home in her own body and wherever she happened to be in the world. She laughed herself, but without knowing why, stopped herself before she could say something to that effect. 

“I can wait,” she said, and kissed his lips just once. 

  
  


* * *

Xena grew quieter and quieter the closer they got to Poteidaia, and while Gabrielle put it down to a combination of Xena not ever having been talkative around people and her anticipation of missing Gabrielle, it still struck an icy shard deeper and deeper into her heart every time she went ahead alone. Gabrielle put it down to her own anticipation of missing Xena, as well as her worry for her. Xena always cut an imposing figure, especially when she was astride Argo, but Gabrielle’s heart clenched every time she saw her riding away. _That’s it,_ some part of her said, _that’s how it will be forever from now on,_ and the thought made her impossibly sad. 

“Hey,” she said that night, sitting next to Xena and knocking her shoulder where she was cleaning her armor and set up a small distance away. _Just to give you both some privacy,_ she’d said to Gabrielle’s furious embarrassment, because nothing like _that_ was going to happen out here, not for the first time and not with Xena so near. “You okay?”

Xena’s face turned to her with that patient look Gabrielle had once loved, because it had meant that Xena wanted to be patient with her, that she was _trying_ , but now had come to hate because of the way Xena wore it like a mask when she wanted to. Stripped of her breastplate and boots and gauntlets and armbands and greaves all the way down to her plain leather battledress, there was a comfortable vulnerability about her here by the firelight that had become so familiar to Gabrielle that when the thought crossed her mind that soon this would be a thing she wouldn’t share with her anymore, there was an actual, physical pain in her chest. 

A touch on her shoulder brought her gaze up to Xena’s worried expression from where it had been resting on Xena’s bare feet. “Maybe I should be the one asking you that,” she said. “I think that’s a record for how fast you’ve spaced out. Something interesting about my feet? I just washed ‘em, can’t be stinky yet.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Gabrielle said, grateful for the reprieve. 

“Well, I can always arrange for you to have an up-close-and-personal whiff,” Xena said with faux-innocence, shifting her balance enough so that her long leg could swing around and put her foot right under Gabrielle’s nose. Clean or not, Gabrielle knew better than to take chances, and she jumped back with a wrinkled nose and a “ _Xena!”_ Xena laughed heartily, enough that the sharp stabbing in Gabrielle’s chest subsided to the ache she’d become more accustomed to. 

“Imagine me in the next town over, telling stories about the Warrior Princess shoving her foot in my face and acting like a kid. They’d never believe it.”

Xena shrugged and smiled and picked up her breastplate and polishing rag again. “Doesn’t sound like my problem.”

Gabrielle had an urge to return to the main campsite and pull out her parchment and quill and ink and come back here. The only problem, of course, was that Perdicus was there waiting for her, and she wouldn’t know how to explain the need to share this moment with Xena the way she had now almost every night for the better part of a year. 

As a compromise, she shifted closer and hugged Xena loosely around the waist, mostly leaning against her with her cheek pressed against the back of her shoulder. Xena’s movements stopped, and she said, “No, don’t,” waiting with bated breath until they began again, this time more slowly and more cautiously so that Gabrielle’s body absorbed each of them. 

“Hey,” Xena said after a minute. “You okay?” 

All of Gabrielle’s plans to get Xena to talk, to admit to the fact that she was going to miss Gabrielle, to help her figure out what she was going to do from here, all flew out of Gabrielle’s mind in an instant. 

“I’m going to miss you,” was all she could think to say. 

Rag against brass stopped again, just briefly. “I’m gonna miss you, too,” was the response. If it were all Xena could handle, that was fine: for the moment, it was all Gabrielle could handle, too. 

  
  


* * *

Strangely, it didn’t get any easier the longer they were on the road together as Gabrielle had imagined it would have. In her experience, the everyday intimacies of travelling with another person were a foundation for friendship. And it wasn’t that Perdicus and Xena fought or anything, but there was a strain that seemed to be exacerbated rather than eased by the time they all spent together. 

Gabrielle had even taken to volunteering to scout ahead two or three times, which she knew Xena indulged because her senses had already alerted her that there was nothing ahead that Gabrielle might get into trouble with. She did it all the same, giving them a long stretch of time to hash out whatever was going on. She supposed she didn’t know what to expect on her return - hushed voices, some indication that they had been talking about her, maybe - but placid, congenial silence and smiles weren’t it. 

“I don’t ‘have a problem’ with Perdicus,” Xena sighed when Gabrielle asked, which was honestly as much a tell as anything Gabrielle had ever heard. “And no, he doesn’t have a problem with me.”

“We just both love you,” Perdicus said that night when Xena had already retreated to her own camp a safe distance away. Smoke from her fire was thick in the air just then, trapping both the firelight and the impression of Xena’s silhouette within it. Gabrielle watched its small movements in the distance, a translation of Xena suspended in space, until Perdicus’ arms tightened around her in a reassuring squeeze and regrounded her nearer to the moment. “Don’t worry about it.” 

_Do you really think so?_ she thought dreamily, though she had the presence of mind not to verbalize it. She’d come to suppose after a while that Xena liked her very much, or at least was extremely fond of her. Every once in a while, though, there was an extra softness to her expression or tenderness in her touch that had made Gabrielle wonder.

But yet, none of this seemed real. Like Xena’s silhouette, the road always seemed like such a transient thing: quick to change and disappear behind her, yet always keeping her between leaving and arriving so long as she kept it under her feet. 

“And just think,” Perdicus continued. “In a few days, we’ll be married.” 

His voice was the dreamy one now. It turned Gabrielle cold without warning or reason. 

“We must be further away than that,” she said, laughing as best as she could suddenly manage.

“For all these months on the road, you’re not too great at figuring distance,” he teased her. “Even Xena said we’re about a day out from Poteidaia now.”

“When did she say that?” Gabrielle asked, and hoped that her rising, baseless alarm wasn’t too obvious. 

“Hmm. Must have been when you were off ‘scouting ahead’,” he said, kissing her cheek fondly. “We should be home by sunset tomorrow.” 

_Home._

Gabrielle’s chest grew tight, but she lay still as Perdicus fell asleep behind her. It was obvious when he passed into Morpheus’ care: signal enough that it was safe to carefully extricate herself from his heavy embrace and stumble to the nearest tree, which she braced against as she gasped for breath. 

Tomorrow. That wasn’t nearly enough time. 

_Time?_ a voice inside her asked. _Time for what?_

_Time for everything!_ she exclaimed back at it. A wife. She would be a wife. She would probably be a mother too, and soon. Strange to think that she had run away from exactly those titles only the year before. Stranger still to think that the direction she’d run had been away from this same man. 

_You love him,_ Gabrielle reminded herself. _And he loves you. He can’t live without you. He laid down his sword for you._

And yet, Gabrielle’s wild eyes caught on a glimmer of light in the distance: Xena’s campfire, burning low as they usually let it while they slept. Her feet had turned themselves towards it and begun to carry her stumbling over brambles before she’d realized she was moving. 

Xena wasn’t asleep. After all this time together, Gabrielle knew her tells in a way that still seemed to surprise Xena, which in turn made Gabrielle warm with quiet pride and possessiveness. How many others had been fooled by her? All those years in her war camps, and it was Gabrielle who had learned what the rhythm of her breathing was in the quiet and the dark. 

Now, her breaths were under the iron control of her will. Gabrielle nearly smiled at the pretense - still - but was too quickly overwhelmed by a wave of grief, the source of which she couldn’t identify. 

It was enough for Xena to give up the game. She sat up, but froze at whatever she found in Gabrielle’s face. 

“Xena,” Gabrielle breathed.

Whatever grief it was had lodged itself in her throat, and it made Xena's name emerge as something very small. She couldn’t have said why she was here or what she’d hoped for if her life had depended on it. All she knew was how time was seeming to coalesce around Xena, propped up on the heels of her hands, moonlight falling over her face and catching in the blue of her eyes. In some corner of Gabrielle’s mind, she knew that Xena would somehow always exist this way for her, all her quotidien facades stripped away and only an aching openness remaining in their place. 

Xena moved then, suddenly real and immediate. “Come here,” she murmured, hand outstretched; and helpless to resist her, Gabrielle went. Xena pulled her gently down, and Gabrielle went; Xena encouraged her into her arms, and Gabrielle went. 

Something was unfurling inside Gabrielle in relief at the same time something else was winding all the tighter. Xena breathed deeply and tightened her embrace, but there was a stutter to it - Gabrielle _knew_ her breaths - and Gabrielle whispered again, “ _Xena._ ” 

The sound of her own name seemed to startle her, and she drew back enough so that Gabrielle could see her face. Gabrielle had an urge it seemed impossible in this new moment to deny, and reached out to touch the corners of her wide eyes with her fingertips. Her touch skated lightly down Xena’s skin, but just before it reached Xena’s parted lips, Xena drew back further, minutely - but it was enough. The moment was broken. 

But, “Stay,” Xena asked when Gabrielle, blushing with a new and sudden self-awareness, made to disentangle herself from Xena. Gabrielle stopped at the word, hovering over Xena while braced on one elbow. Xena’s thighs were still pressed against hers, and her chest pressed into Gabrielle’s with every rise of her breath. Gabrielle hesitated. The moment trembled, suspended. 

“Please.” Xena’s voice was a whisper.

_Tomorrow,_ beat her heart. _Tomorrow you’ll be a wife._

At the main campsite, Perdicus slept unawares.

_Tomorrow you’ll be home._

Had she ever witnessed Xena plead for something? Not like this, Gabrielle was sure of it. Nothing like this moment had ever happened before. Nothing like it would ever happen again. She breathed in deeply. She touched Xena’s lips. Xena watched her and seemed not to move, not even to breathe.

_Tomorrow,_ beat her heart. _What is she going to do without you?_

“Okay,” Gabrielle said, and stayed.


	2. Xena

It was Gabrielle’s mother who answered the door, which Xena thought was likely best for all of them considering the rag tag group they represented. 

Not that it seemed to matter: Hecuba had eyes only for one person. Overcome, her hands flew to her mouth and she hurried forward to gather her daughter into her arms. 

“Gabrielle!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Gabrielle. I didn’t think - I thought - oh - “ 

“Hi, Mom,” Gabrielle said, suffering her mother’s attention with grace. Well, Xena thought, it really was the least she could do. And if this were the worst thing Gabrielle suffered from this point forward, Xena would give her thanks to the gods twice daily. 

“And Perdicus!” Hecuba said, bypassing his extended hand to kiss his blushing cheek. “We thought we’d never see you again either! Come, come, you’re family, none of that.” 

But when she turned at last to Xena, the moment immediately became awkward. Xena understood her plight: what did one say to the woman who had stolen away your daughter, whose murderous exploits were the stuff of legend in Greece and beyond? Gabrielle had mentioned once or twice that her parents had warned her about Xena, to Xena’s surprise - she had always assumed that Poteidaia was too out of the way for her name to have traveled there, else why would Gabrielle ever have followed after her? - which meant that Hecuba was aware of at least some of the pertinent details of her past. 

“Xena,” she settled for saying, neither welcome nor reproof. Xena appreciated the simplicity of it. “It’s been some time.” 

“It has,” Xena agreed. 

Thankfully, Hecuba seemed to be of the opinion that this wasn’t the place or time to air grievances, and merely ended the conversation - if it could be called that - with a short nod. “Well, I guess you’re all hungry. You’re in time for dinner, why don’t you come inside.” 

The house seemed to be in much the same shape as she’d last seen it. Not that Xena had been taking careful stock of it at the time, intent as the villagers were to hustle her out of town. The excitable girl Xena would soon come to know as Gabrielle had been buzzing around the house, circling Xena in a tighter and tighter orbit until Xena had had to repress the urge to swat her away - an old instinct - or press her down firmly by her shoulders and hold her there until she stilled or focused - which Xena had suspected wouldn’t go over well with the village spokesperson or women dressing her negligible wounds at said excitable girl’s insistence. 

Now, of course, there were the expected gasps and shouts. _“Gab!”_ Lila shrieked, before throwing herself at her sister, while Herodotus shook Perdicus’ hand familiarly and glared at Xena, the interloper, the daughter-stealer. No doubt a whole new myth about her had sprung up in this house while Gabrielle had been away. 

She kept herself out of the way while the family caught up. It was good to be welcomed home when you’d been away, no matter how estranged you felt from home, she knew that much. Besides, what could she say? _Thanks for welcoming me? Well, there she is, not dead?_ Nothing that would go over well. Better to stay quiet. It would all be over soon, anyway.

Lila was pulled away by her mother and pressed into making more quickbread to fill out the meal that had been intended for three. Perdicus, apparently familiar with the layout of Gabrielle’s family home, put himself in charge of finding a fifth and sixth chair for himself and Xena and rearranging the table to accommodate the addition of three new people. Meanwhile, Herodotus took his turn fussing over his daughter. 

“Dad, I’m _fine,”_ Gabrielle’s voice wafted over to where Xena was more than once, always at varying levels of amused and annoyed. 

“We heard about that mess with - what’s his name, Mulligar…”

“ _Meleagar,_ ” Gabrielle corrected, exasperation thick in her voice.

“Yes, him. And we heard you were very brave and all, but - “

Xena didn’t need to hear any more. Gabrielle had gone on about Meleager enough in the weeks after it had happened, with no small amount of boasting about her own hand in saving Poteidaia. This wasn’t Xena’s fight.

The thought was enough to propel her out the door past Hecuba and Lila’s startled glances. Xena paused for a moment on the other side of the door, long enough to take a deep breath and let it out again. Argo was staring at her reproachfully just where Xena had left her. 

“Hey, girl,” Xena greeted her as she started towards her. “Mad at me?” Argo whinnied, pawed at the ground once. “Yeah, I hear you. Let’s get this saddle off, huh? And then you’ve got a nice stable with your name on it.” 

* * *

It didn’t take long for Gabrielle to get to the point over dinner - but then, Xena reflected, it never did.

“So, Perdicus and I have some news.” 

“Oh?” Hecuba said, distracted by her attempts to scrape the last of the grain salad out of the serving bowl and onto Lila’s plate. “And what news is that? And how did you two meet up again out there, anyway?” 

Gabrielle seemed ready to launch into storyteller mode, but Perdicus took her hand. That seemed to be enough to refocus her as they shared a secret smile. Xena tensed. _Here goes._

“We’ll tell you that story in a minute,” Gabrielle promised. “But first - we’re getting married!”

Whatever they’d been expecting, Xena thought, it couldn’t have been what they got. Silence descended on the table. Lila looked like she was about to start laughing, but whether it was out of nervousness or anticipation of the joke, Xena couldn’t tell. Herodotus looked distinctly unamused. 

“Honey, I thought the whole reason you ran away was because you didn’t want to get married?” Hecuba asked mildly, still occupied with the bowl. “No offense, Perdicus.” 

“None taken,” Perdicus replied, and looked like he actually meant it. 

“People change,” Gabrielle told her mother, and then looked adoringly again at Perdicus. Xena suppressed a wave of irritation. “I think I’ve learned that more than anything in the last year.” 

“So you’re telling us that all you had to do was run around Greece with a warlord to realize that you were going to do your duty to your family after all?” Herodotus said. “No offense, Xena.” 

Xena bristled. “None taken,” she drawled with a dangerous smile. A foot kicked her under the table which Xena identified as Gabrielle’s, if only because no one else present would have dared. 

But Gabrielle wasn’t giving herself away when Xena turned narrowed eyes on her. She wasn’t even looking at Xena, instead focused on her father and looking suspiciously like she was working herself up to some kind of passionate speech, having been denied going into bard mode earlier. And sure enough - 

“It’s not about _duty,_ ” Gabrielle argued. “It’s about _love._ ”

“Oh, _now_ it’s about love,” Herodotus said dryly. 

“Herodotus,” Hecuba admonished him. 

Perdicus was starting to look uncomfortable. Didn’t he know Gabrielle’s family well enough to have counted on this? Xena had only met them the once but had figured that Gabrielle’s sudden reversal to realign with their initial plans for her wouldn’t go over completely smoothly.

It wasn’t that Xena _disliked_ Perdicus. He was a decent man, and it was clear he loved Gabrielle, which was worth a lot in her estimation of anyone. Better still was the fondness that Gabrielle had obviously had for him from the beginning.

Yet the uncharitable part of her still snarled, still looked at him and cried, _he’s made himself into the person you think you want, he’s done it for you, it will never last._ She’d seen the type enough. _Maybe it’ll stick_ , said the newer, hopeful side of her, but Xena couldn’t help knowing better. And what would Gabrielle do then? Live a perfectly average life? Sink into the annals of mediocrity? No one would be able to say a word against her. She’d have a perfectly beautiful family, and Xena would never be able to bear to visit her.

Maybe it was better this way.

“Don’t you see?” Gabrielle was saying. Xena stifled a sigh, knowing where this was going. She’d sure heard it enough on the way here. “It had to happen this way. It was meant to. Neither Perdicus nor I would have been who we are without the last year. We’re different people, now. We know each other now, and more importantly - we know ourselves.” 

Lila was still looking wide-eyed between them all like she couldn’t decide where her attention should sit. But her gaze caught Xena’s as Xena was watching her, Xena was surprised when it didn’t flit away from her again. Instead, it softened and seemed to grow unbearably familiar. Was it sadness Xena thought she read? And if so, who was it for? In the end, it was Xena who looked away. 

“Be that as it may, _daughter,_ we didn’t mean for you to marry a soldier when the match was arranged,” Herodotus said. “I understand you want some excitement and swords in your life, though only the gods know why, first running after the Warrior Princess and now this - “

Gabrielle looked mortified. “ _F_ _ather,”_ she said in kind, “Perdicus isn’t a soldier anymore. He gave it up when he asked me to marry him.” 

“I did,” Perdicus affirmed, taking his cue. “I’ve left that life behind. It wasn’t meant for me - not forever. I only did it in the first place because - well,” he said, and laughed sheepishly, “because of Gabrielle. And it brought me to her again.” 

“Do you see?” Gabrielle entreated both her parents, taking Perdicus’ hand: a united front. Xena had a sudden vision of them five years from now, comfortable in their marriage with children at their feet. “This was meant to happen, in just this way.” 

But Hecuba sighed, regarding her daughter with something between fondness and tiredness. “Life isn’t one of your stories, Gabrielle.” 

“And what are your plans now?” Herodotus asked Perdicus before Gabrielle could reply. 

“I’d thought to settle here. This is home, after all, and I still have the portion of land my parents meant for me when we were to be married,” Perdicus replied. “Before, I mean.” 

“Well, that’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard tonight,” Herodotus grumbled. “All this talk of you being different people, then - how do I know you’ll be supported? How will your children live? This isn’t a game, Gabrielle, and it’s not something you can just run away from this time.” 

“I know,” said Gabrielle, and then, unexpectedly, her voiced quieted. “I know.” 

“Well,” said Hecuba in the silence that fell. “I suppose we should talk with your parents, Perdicus. It sounds like we’ll have a wedding soon.” 

* * *

Xena retreated to the barn after dinner over Gabrielle’s protests that there was more than enough room in the house. But Xena had counted the available beds, and given the choice of sleeping on the floor of a home where she wasn’t wanted and sleeping on the floor on a barn where she could keep to herself, there wasn’t much of a contest what she preferred. 

“You know I don’t mind,” she said patiently while Gabrielle tapped her foot, decidedly displeased. “Hey, _you’ve_ slept in enough barns. I know you don’t either.” 

Gabrielle had eventually shooed her on outside, where Xena had again exhaled in her relief at being alone with herself. Gabrielle was the exception - of course she was - but being in anyone else’s company for prolonged periods of time made her itchy. 

She was just starting to think she might get to pass the night alone when there was movement at the door. Her hand went to her chakram just in case, but the silhouette revealed itself to be Herodotus. 

For a while, they simply stared at each other. Then he walked toward her and held out a money pouch. Xena continued to stare, not comprehending.

“It’s all I can give you as thanks for keeping her safe all this time,” he said, extending a pouch toward her. “I know it can’t have been an easy task.” 

For some reason, it was the first time she’d felt truly nauseous since all this started. In his hand, she saw all over again the loot wagons her own village had offered her the last time she was there. Everything within her revolted at the idea, and she shook her head and looked away. “Gabrielle is family,” she managed to say. “I can’t accept.”

Honestly, Herodotus seemed to be just as glad that she’d turned his offer down. “She’s right about one thing,” he said, and gave her a sidelong glance as he repocketed the pouch. “She is a different person.” 

“Time will do that,” Xena agreed. 

“So will influence,” he said. 

Ah - here it was, finally. Xena had been waiting for it. “You got something to say?” she prompted him quietly. 

“Are you threatening me?” 

Xena’s lips quirked, and a small mirthless chuckle escaped her. “No,” she denied. “Just inviting you to finally say what you’ve been thinking.” 

His gaze was long and appraising. Xena looked steadily back, sure she hadn’t actually managed to surprise him. But If she had, it was lost in her own surprise of what he chose to say next.

“So what do you think about all this?” Herodotus gestured vaguely in the direction of the house where Xena presumed Gabrielle and Perdicus still were. “You’ve been awfully quiet about your opinion, whatever it is, and I’m sure you have one.” 

“It’s not my place to give it,” Xena said honestly. “It’s your family. I’m a guest.” 

“Well, you just claimed my daughter as family, so against my better judgment, I’m inviting you to give it.” 

Xena hesitated. "I think Gabrielle is a capable woman. That she should know her own mind.” 

It was Herodotus’ turn to chuckle. “I think you must know her well enough to know that _should_ and _does_ are two very different things with that girl,” he said, and his voice grew wistful. “Always have been.” 

“Yeah,” Xena agreed, voice equally quiet. 

Around them were the sounds of the barn: animals whinnying or bleating, hay crunching softly under bodies or in mouths, wood creaking in the wind or with movement. It was a familiar set of sounds, and one that reminded Xena very much of her own childhood in Amphipolis no matter which barn she was in, no matter where she was in the world - if she let herself. Some days it was closer than others. 

It was easy to imagine a younger Gabrielle taking refuge in this barn, maybe in this very spot, and dreaming of all the lives she wanted outside of it. She’d managed to make some of those dreams come true. Some of them she’d turned down, course correcting in a way that Xena had admired even through her relief that they had brought Gabrielle right back to her side. At Gabrielle’s age, Xena hadn’t had either the insight or the self-control to do anything other than see, want, take. Her own jostling against the constraints Amphipolis had imposed on her had been different in that way - but for all that, it was something that Xena had always understood in Gabrielle. 

_I was leading an army at your age,_ she’d often thought when looking at Gabrielle’s youth, or _I was captaining a pirate ship, I was running wild on the steppes, I was being crucified, I was delivering a child and giving away what was left of my soul._

But still, before any of that, Xena had understood what it was to not want to be married. If there had never been Cortese - if Lyceus had never died - if her countrymen hadn’t rallied behind her - she might have run away from a betrothal and everything that came with it, too. Maybe she still even would have met Gabrielle out there, just under vastly different circumstances.

The truth was, of course, that Xena didn’t understand this at all. Of course Gabrielle deserved a home and a family, stability, simple pleasures - and of course it chafed at Xena like rough salt in an open wound that those were the exact things that Xena would never be able to give her. 

_Just because you found a home in her doesn’t mean she found it in you,_ Xena chastised herself. _You lovesick fool. All the hard lessons you’ve ever had to take, and it figures this is the one it would take you until now to learn._

But true to form, Xena had never really learned - all she ever wanted was _more_. Even her own mind had started playing tricks on her, plying her with hope and giving her a Gabrielle she wanted to see. Tearstained cheeks, wild eyes, Xena’s name desperate in her mouth - _oh, great, Xena; you couldn’t have done any better if you’d intentionally conjured her up yourself._

Of course Xena had woken alone this morning, and when she crept to the main campsite in the first rays of dawn, Gabrielle had still been there in the circle of Perdicus’ arms, snoring blissfully away where Xena had last seen her, no doubt dreaming of love and future. 

An unnatural chill had crept over Xena’s skin then, and she’d turned away and stiffened herself against it. After all, there was the usual work to do, as there always was. It was good work to keep her hands busy and her mind empty; and when at last she stirred, Gabrielle hadn’t said anything other than a sleepy _Good morning, Xena._

“I think that at some point, you have to trust people to make their own achievements and mistakes,” Xena told Herodotus at length. “You asked my opinion. I think it’s time to let Gabrielle make hers.”

Herodotus laughed, although not entirely unkindly. “Forgive me, Warrior Princess,” he said, emphasizing her title, “if I don’t take that advice from you.” 

“You don’t have to,” Xena replied with a shrug. “But I do know that Gabrielle is going to do what she wants. She’s proven she will. And she’s humble enough to admit when she’s made a mistake. She’s not like me, in that.” 

“To hear her tell it, she’s exactly like you in that.” 

Again, Xena shrugged, uncomfortable as ever with the claims Gabrielle made of her, but this time stayed quiet. 

“Alright. You wanted me to say what I’ve been thinking?” Herodotus said when she didn’t. “I think the last year was more of a mistake than anything else we ever could have allowed. She’s always been a wild one, but now - she’s seen the world. She wants more. She even thinks she can have it. That’s not compatible with the life she says she wants now.” 

“Gabrielle has a way of surprising you,” Xena said, but didn’t disagree. “She’ll find her own way through life.” 

Herodotus scoffed. “That’s what I’m afraid of. She says she’s changed, she’s changed - what she means is, _you’ve_ changed her. And where have you left her? Somewhere in between a normal life and whatever life she can have out there, stuck in between.”

He wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true, but it rankled Xena all the same. “Like I said,” Xena said, her voice becoming steely, “Gabrielle will find her own way. She has a talent for it, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.” 

“Xena?” 

The new voice surprised them both, and they looked toward the door to see Gabrielle’s small frame peeking around it. She also seemed surprised to see the both of them here and having a conversation, and - unsurprisingly - her face took on a wary look of suspicion. “What are you talking about?” 

“You,” Xena said honestly, and smiled when Gabrielle made a face. 

“Dad, you’re not bothering her, are you? Xena’s a guest.” 

Herodotus sighed. “No. I’m not.” He threw a glance at Xena, and she was quick to nod in agreement. “Besides, I think we’re about done. I think your mother wanted to go treat with Perdicus’ parents before nightfall.” 

“She’s looking for you,” Gabrielle prompted.

“Well then. Xena,” Herodotus said by way of farewell, and kissed the top of his daughter’s head on the way out. 

Gabrielle watched him leave, and instead of asking questions as Xena had been afraid she might, simply sat herself next to Xena. 

“Well?” Xena finally asked when she didn’t immediately speak. There were any number of things Gabrielle might have been itching to talk about, but Xena had a feeling she knew what was on her mind.

“I thought they would be happy for me,” Gabrielle said morosely, looking at her hands. “Or just happy. I mean, this was what they wanted all along, right? It figures that now that I want it too, everything’s different.” 

“They _do_ want you to be happy, Gabrielle,” Xena assured her. “And you’re right - everything different. You’re different. They don’t know who you are now. So show them.”

“They didn’t know who I was before, either,” Gabrielle muttered, and drew her legs up to her chest, curling around herself. “Why would now be different?” 

Xena shrugged. “Maybe it won’t be. Either way, it’s your choice. You already proved to yourself that you can make your own life. They’ll either come around or they won’t.” 

“You make it sound so easy,” Gabrielle said, but her laugh was plainly - and poorly - concealing tears. “Maybe it was a mistake coming back here.”

“You would have come back here sooner or later,” Xena pointed out.

“Yeah, well maybe I shouldn’t have,” Gabrielle said more vehemently than Xena had expected. Xena remained quiet, waiting, and was rewarded for it when Gabrielle laughed bitterly. “You know, I never expected to come back here. I mean, to visit, sure, I couldn’t just not see Lila or my parents ever again, and this _is_ home, whether I like it or not - but to stay? By the gods, I can’t - I can’t even explain to you how it felt leaving. I had _no_ idea what I was doing. It was a miracle I made it to Amphipolis and found you.” 

If she were someone who believed in miracles, Xena would have been willing to agree that that had been one. “So are you really planning to stay here after you’re married?” 

Gabrielle shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, I think. For a little while at least. Perdicus has the land, anyway.” 

“And then?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe that’s something you two should figure out before the wedding - and before your parents all talk,” Xena suggested. 

But Gabrielle was verging on irritated, Xena could see it in the restlessness of her body and the tightness of her expression. “I just want to be happy,” she said, almost to herself. “I was so happy. I don’t understand why I’m not now. But that’ll change, right?” 

Xena didn’t dare respond to that, not even when Gabrielle whirled around to face her with desperation emerging on her face: a mirror of the apparition that had visited Xena last night. Xena’s breath caught. Somewhere deep inside her, hope began to stir again. 

“Can we go somewhere?” Gabrielle asked her. 

_Anywhere._ “Sure,” Xena replied. “Where?”

“Not far,” was her response, and Xena’s heart fell a little even as Gabrielle grabbed her hand perfunctorily and hauled her up. “Just - come on.” 

Gabrielle led them away from town and along the little river it bordered until they were in a copse of trees. Even in the dark, Xena would recognize it anywhere. 

“Got an urge to reminisce?” Xena said dryly to mask her sudden breathlessness. She could still feel it if she stood… just here. Her own despair, her own resolution, still thick in the air and potent as magic. She fell to her knees, ran her hands reverently over the spot where she’d buried her weapons, or near enough it. It was all grown over now, of course, but the soil was warm to the touch, almost as if it remembered her too. 

Gabrielle’s eyes looked somehow more and less lost when Xena looked up at her. She was also gazing intently at Xena, seeming for all the world like she too was trying to find something buried and long gone. 

“It felt right, somehow,” Gabrielle offered, and at length she looked away and began wandering around the clearing. Her touch alighted on the trunks of several trees and the leaves of bushes, searching and not finding. “You know, when I first saw you, I felt like - like my entire life was finally starting. Like suddenly, everything was new. Everything had snapped into place. I was so sure of it.” 

It was a pretty sentiment. Xena nodded tightly and pushed down the more recent memory of Gabrielle gasping her way back into life in her arms, of feeling her own heart stuttering to life again at the same time, knowing Gabrielle for its center for the first time. Xena hadn’t known then - not fully - but it had only been a matter of time. 

“Weren’t you afraid?” Xena asked to have something to say, but she already knew the answer. Gabrielle’s smile simply confirmed it. 

“No. I mean, I was at first, before - but then, when you came? No.” 

“Brave girl,” Xena murmured almost to herself, looking away for a moment only to find Gabrielle had stolen alarmingly close when she looked back. She rose to her feet again, too off-balance with Gabrielle looming over her this way, especially when she was looking at her the way she was.

“I’m not,” Gabrielle confessed, voice equally hushed. “Xena, I don’t - “

But her voice broke off. Xena tutted, reached out hesitantly, touched her shoulder. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Gabrielle whispered. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Xena said, nearly whispering herself. This close, the rest of the world and its concerns seemed to melt away, leaving only the two of them. Tomorrow was another day; there would be time enough to worry about it then. “You always do.” 

Xena couldn’t help her half smile, or the way her forefinger came up to touch Gabrielle’s smooth cheek. Gabrielle’s eyes closed, her lips parted. Xena stared, caught up in wonder. 

Gabrielle’s eyes opened then, the suddenness of the motion so startling in the moment that Xena nearly took a step back. 

“Xena?” she said. “I’m afraid.” 

_Of what?_ Xena might have asked, but knew it wasn’t the right answer. Something was keeping her calm, almost artificially so. It was like moving and thinking through water. She felt languid, suspended in an elemental lassitude. _Everything will be okay,_ it seemed to say to her. She nearly laughed. Gabrielle stared. Of course it would be. How could she think otherwise, here, now, in this moment? 

“Don’t be,” she replied, surer of anything than she’d ever been. She let her fingers splay and cup her cheek, holding Gabrielle there, suspending her in time. She would always exist for Xena as she was now. She would always be part of Xena in just this way.

A graze on the corner of her lips was all Xena had intended, but if she’d been thinking clearly, she should have known it was the worst kind of compromise: both too close and too far from the the thing she actually wanted, and enough out of the ordinary that it might very well spark questions in Gabrielle. 

Gabrielle, who caught Xena’s cheek as she tried to pull away, only to press her own lips against the corner of Xena’s. Gabrielle, who held her right where she was, looking at Xena too, too close with a kind of wonder Xena had never seen scrawl across her face before. 

“Xena?” she asked again softly, her lips so close to Xena’s that they brushed together with the movement.

Xena’s heart cracked all over again. Did Gabrielle recognize herself there? _Let her,_ her heart said in Gabrielle’s voice, _let her._

Her mind was wild all over again, her chest heavy and throat raw with the echo of sobs she had already let loose in a temple months ago.

But here, as she had been then, was Gabrielle: in her arms, and gasping herself into new life. 

It was enough. It was everything. Xena moved forward the scarce millimeters that separated them, and kissed her. 

It was only a simple pressing together of lips, but it was still a decisive thing. Xena knew Gabrielle well enough to know that she’d take it as an answer to the question she’d wrapped up in Xena’s name, and Xena couldn’t quite regret it. Xena could feel Gabrielle’s heart beating hard and fast even without her hand over her chest, but Gabrielle didn’t pull away. Instead, her fingers moved where they still rested on Xena’s cheek in a caress, unconsciously thumbing the line of Xena’s cheekbone. 

The tenderness of the gesture, so new and yet so familiar in the essence of what was behind it, was enough to make Xena go temporarily stupid. She could no more help the way she tilted her head and pressed forward into Gabrielle’s mouth than she could help other her hand flying up to cradle and direct Gabrielle’s jaw. But Gabrielle wasn’t complaining: the noise she made vibrated on Xena’s tongue and reverberated throughout her body in a shudder until it had reached the depths of her soul and housed itself safely there. 

It was so much; it was the fullness of her wanting that Xena hadn’t allowed herself to realize until this very moment; and it was with the singlemindedness of wanting the thing that was miraculously within her grasp that she walked Gabrielle backward and pressed her back against a tree. 

She wanted in a way she’d never known how to curb. _More_ , her mind, her soul, her body had always demanded; _more, more, more._ The only difference between Xena then and Xena now was that with Gabrielle under her conquering hands, the wanting had taken on more of a soul-deep desperation than a craven need. _More -_ Gabrielle whimpered at the taste of her tongue; _more -_ Gabrielle arched into her hand on her breast; _more -_ her leg came up to circle Xena’s waist at her mindless direction. She felt like she’d stumbled through that fog of her own ghost, a year and some old, thick with desperation and despair. Only Gabrielle was the cure. She had always been the cure. Xena simply knew it now. 

She wanted in a way she’d never known how to stop, not even with Gabrielle’s hands firm on her shoulders and suddenly exerting pressure. 

“Xena,” she mumbled around her lips, before Xena took advantage of it and kissed her again, making Gabrielle hum. “Xena,” she tried again, “Xena, _stop._ ”

Xena stopped. Gabrielle’s eyes were passion-dark, her lips were kiss-swollen - but there was an innocent confusion in her eyes too that made Xena retreat entirely, suddenly afraid. Gabrielle’s leg fell back to the ground, and she stumbled a bit in place before she found her footing, caught as her eyes were on Xena’s. 

“Xena,” she started again, but Xena was already backing up. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Gabrielle said, and - was there pleading under her voice? Her hand was reaching out to her again, her foot was stepping forward. Xena laughed, and the sound was tinged with wildness, enough to make Gabrielle frown in something between concern and fear. 

“I’m glad we came out here,” she offered calmly when she could. 

“Me too,” Gabrielle replied cautiously, still searching Xena’s face for truth. She wouldn’t find it - Xena had hidden it away. It would be better that way. “Xena, can we - “

Xena couldn’t bear to hear the request. The last gasp of desire squeezed itself past the tightness of her throat and pushed her forward one last time. Gabrielle’s lips were soft under hers, and Xena held the simple contact for as long as she dared. 

“Tomorrow,” she lied. 

But Gabrielle scrutinized her - and accepted it. “Tomorrow.”


End file.
